Danny had said it before, and he was sure he would say it again: Harry Potter was a bloody madman. A certifiable lunatic. He hadn't lost the plot, he'd deliberately thrown it out the window because it was boring and skipped off to go play with giant, man-eating spiders.
It made sense, of course, knowing as he now did that Harry was, in fact, Bellatrix's son — and Danny himself wasn't, which was the biggest of weights off his shoulders, he was a little annoyed at everyone who had known and hadn't told him, damn it! — but that didn't change the fact that he was clearly mad.
Sometimes, this fact was less obvious than others, like when they were just hanging out with Blaise and Theo or in lessons. Sometimes, though, like when faced with an enormous bloody troll (or losing all semblance of self-control and trying to murder Danny), it was impossible not to see.
From the look on Mum's face, though, nothing Harry had ever done — not fighting the troll, or living alone in Knockturn Alley for a month when he'd just found out about magic, or even killing that person for the Black Family Magic just a few nights ago (Danny still...wasn't entirely okay with that, even if Mum had explained and no, he hadn't had any ideas about what Harry should've done instead, but...) — nothing was quite as mad as volunteering to spend the summer with Druella Rosier.
Not just agreeing to stay with her but actively, enthusiastically volunteering.
And that was saying kind of a lot, since she'd had to wrestle him into submission to stop him from ripping Danny's throat out with his bloody teeth over Yule. Danny was even less okay with that than he was about Harry going and murdering some anonymous stranger he'd never even seen. It really didn't matter that he said he hadn't meant to and wouldn't do it again, because I don't want to eat you, and we're not dying anymore, so the Crow Child won't either. Every time he looked at his roommate, he kept flashing back to the expression on Harry's face as he pounced on him, his eyes all-dark, a trickle of blood running down his chin where he'd tried to drink from the bowl of Socks's blood too quickly — even if he hadn't tried to kill Danny, Danny wasn't entirely certain he would be able to look at Harry the same after just that.
Yes, Danny was the one who had invited him in the first place, and yes, Harry being a creepy, dark little psycho was sort of just Tuesday, but normally he was just saying creepy shite, or running off to spend the night exploring the Forbidden Forest, not drinking the fucking blood of a dog he'd just spent the whole afternoon petting. (Socks had liked Harry, and he seemed to like her, letting her drool on his knee and scratching her ears — he liked dogs in general, probably more than he liked people, it seemed wrong that he hadn't even cared that they were going to kill her in a few hours.) To say nothing of watching him sit in the lap of the actual ever-loving Dark, sucking on her arm like a fucking vampire while she made conversation with Mum, like this was perfectly normal and not possibly the most disturbing thing Danny had ever seen.
Dora morphing back an arm she accidentally morphed away in her sleep was also up there on the list of things that made him think what the hell even are you/no offence, but I might be sick if I keep watching, but he thought Harry acting like a feral vampire (and then like this was perfectly normal, reasonable behaviour and Danny was being unreasonable still being uncomfortable about it and not totally over it ten minutes after the danger of immediate murder had passed) was higher. Probably.
"You're insane," Mum muttered, not quite under her breath.
"I hear it runs in the family," Harry noted, with a bloody wink, the cheeky bugger. Honestly, Danny didn't think he was taking the whole Bellatrix Black is your mother thing seriously enough. Maybe it paled in comparison to the whole Black Family Magic thing, or it was easier if you didn't grow up hearing stories about the mad Dark Lady, but Danny had been low-key, background worried that he was going to just wake up crazy one morning for literally years. (Okay, maybe he was a little more than just a little annoyed with everyone who hadn't told him. Dora had told him that he was adopted when he was little, and couldn't understand why he wasn't a metamorph, too, but Mum and Dad had always said they would tell him about his birth parents when he was older, and just let them assume that he was Bella's kid, and that was why they didn't want to talk about it.) He was pretty sure Harry just thought the whole idea of being insane was hilarious...because he was already insane.
"Do you have any idea what you'd be signing up for?" Mum demanded.
Harry nodded, grinning. "I get to spend all day practising duelling and learning new magic, and talking about history and philosophy...in Russian, probably. And reading, but I'll probably do that at night, since— Well, I don't know, do faeries sleep?" he asked the blonde witch.
She glared at him, the sharp, too-symmetrical planes of her face growing even more forbidding. Danny had seen pictures of her before, of course, but they didn't quite do her justice. A photo couldn't really capture the uncanniness of the way she moved — not quite like Harry, but...more like a badly-animated illusion, whose caster hadn't taken into account that real people didn't move perfectly smoothly and actually had weight — or the coldness of her disinterest. He would say of her disdain, but disdain implied actually feeling something, and he couldn't help thinking that any expression she put on — even that little glare right there — was more an act than anything. And not a very convincing one, at that.
"Please keep it to yourself that I'm apparently not entirely human. And in answer to your question, your obnoxious tendency not to sleep is a product of the Black Madness, not anything you inherited from me. Yes, I sleep, and yes, I intended when I outlined your schedule that you would spend the hours reasonable people are unconscious working on your reading list."
Danny's mad roommate grinned. (Should I ask Flitwick about switching rooms? he wondered. He wasn't certain he would be able to sleep in the same room as Harry anymore — especially since Harry didn't sleep, or at least not nearly as much as Danny.) "Sorry, I didn't realise there were people who legitimately believe you are entirely human."
"You're not entirely human?!" Mum exclaimed.
Harry giggled. "I definitely didn't realise there were people who are related to you who believe you're human."
"What the— How— Am I human?"
"Please don't stutter, Andromeda. You know better. Given that I'm biologically human — I did take the lineage and compatibility blood tests before my marriage, I certainly would have noticed if the results had suggested otherwise — and I knew by the time you were born that it's considered abnormal and deeply disturbing to give soulfire to infants, I suspect that yes, you are entirely human."
"Oh. Good," Mum said faintly. "Soulfire? Why would you give soulfire to an infant, Mother? Wait— Does that mean Bella...?"
Druella shrugged. "Because I was delirious and it felt right at the time. Some instinct to perpetuate whatever preternatural symbiote has taken up residence in my soul, I presume. I don't know, Harry only informed me about an hour and a half ago that the Black Family Magic refers to me as a 'sleeping fae child'. I haven't had a chance to research it. Given that it's already waited sixty-odd years for me to stop denying that it exists, however, it's hardly near the top of my list of priorities. And yes, Bellatrix most likely shares whatever it is, at least in a dormant form — I have no idea how becoming a black mage might have affected it, but she certainly displayed the same instinct to share soulfire with Harry immediately after his birth, so." She shrugged again.
"So, I'm probably not human either?" Harry said, as though that wasn't completely obvious to literally everyone, especially after Yule. "Cool!"
"You would think so," Druella drawled, with an exasperated little sigh.
"If this thing is magically heritable, does that mean that your parents are...whatever you are?"
Druella raised an eyebrow at Mum. "Transmissible would be a better term, I suspect, and I sincerely doubt it. I most likely contracted it when I began spirit-walking as a child. I am not, however, here to talk about myself. We've just spoken to Albus. He's agreed that it will be for the best to wait until Thom is finished off to reveal that Harry is in fact not Harry Potter, at which point he will be reintroduced as the product of a fling between Sirius and an as-yet-unnamed muggleborn, raised in the muggle world by his late mother's family, and masquerading as Harry Potter since beginning school as a diversion for our not-quite-late Dark Lord. Whether we reveal you as the original Harry Potter at that time is entirely up to you, Danny."
Danny, who hadn't expected to be addressed, startled slightly. "Er. What?"
"When it is questioned where the real Harry Potter is, Albus can either point the questioners to you, or brush them off with a claim that you are being raised anonymously for your own safety, and wish to avoid the publicity and so on and so forth. You will have to reveal yourself when you come of age in order to accept the responsibilities of Lord Potter, but there is no reason you need do so before then."
Well, obviously Danny didn't want to be known as Harry Potter. He'd seen how everyone at school treated Harry — not all of the attention he got was because he was a tiny madman who was shockingly good at pretty much everything — and Danny wanted nothing to do with that dragonshite.
Before he could say as much, though, Mum repeated, "Until Thom is finished off," in a very suspicious tone. "You surely don't mean that you intend to take care of whatever remains of him on this plane."
"No, I was quite content for him to languish in impotent immortality for the foreseeable future. He was quite mad before the end — a parody of himself, in many ways — but I'm confident he would still consider his current state one of previously unimaginable torture. The Dark asked Harry to put him out of his misery, supposedly so that Bellatrix will leave Azkaban — it seems both of them are currently being affected by a rather nasty tynged anchored in Thom's soul — which I can't say I'm entirely happy about, but I have no doubt that Harry will eventually manage the task with or without my help — and when he does, I would prefer Bellatrix not kill me because I refused to aid him in releasing her from said curse," she said, as blandly as if they were discussing the weather, which was just... What?
Not that he hadn't understood, it was just...that was a lot. Harry knew Danny didn't approve of him running off to kill someone for his family magic, so he hadn't really told him anything that had happened, and Danny honestly didn't know if he wanted to know, so hadn't wanted to ask — he might ask Blaise when they got back to school, Blaise would tell Danny if he really didn't want to know instead of just telling him whatever thing he really didn't want to know, whereas Harry still clearly didn't understand why killing people was wrong, let alone why Danny was upset about him doing so, but...
Shite, maybe he'd write to Blaise, he wasn't at all sure he could wait another two weeks to ask what the hell had happened at Yule.
Mum glared at her mother. "Leaving aside for the moment whether encouraging Bella to leave the Rock is a cost we're willing to bear the responsibility of having made, Harry is eleven, Mother!"
"He is, yes." ("I'm almost twelve!" Harry interjected, though both Mum and Druella ignored him.) "Is this somehow significant?"
"You can't expect a little boy—" ("I'm almost twelve, Andi!") "—to just go kill a Dark Lord, Mother! It's completely absurd! I can't even begin to explain how far from reasonable your expectations for Bella and myself were when we were children, the pressure you put on us—"
"You were daughters of the House of Black, and my expectations for you were high because Bella—"
"That Bella actually managed to meet your ridiculous standards on occasion didn't make them reasonable, Mother!" Mum spat, obviously furious that Druella was going to try to justify her horrible childhood. "Forcing children to work on improving themselves literally every waking moment, trying and failing to measure up to you, never good enough, no matter how well we did— I can't count the number of times I cried myself to sleep because you convinced me that I was worthless and incompetent because I wasn't perfect and would therefore never be worthy of even the slightest scrap of affection from you!"
Druella blinked at her, clearly taken aback and obviously uncertain what to say to that, which was fair — Danny had never heard his mother sound so upset before. "I'm...sorry?"
"No, you're not. You're confused, because you don't think you did anything wrong, do you?"
"Well, obviously I did, if you're still this upset about it twenty-five years later, but no, I don't know what it was. I taught you everything you needed to know and I'm positive I never told you that you were worthless or incompetent..."
"You didn't have to say it! It was in every correction, every comparison to Bellatrix, every casual dismissal— And that's the problem, right there! You weren't our teacher, you were our mother, and you never acted like it, and maybe Bella was fine with that — yet another reason I thought I was weak or somehow wrong, having human emotions, needing affection, how gauche — but Bella was broken, Mother! She couldn't feel shame or guilt for failing you, or hurt because you offered nothing but criticism, or self-loathing because you wanted nothing to do with us! And even she realised we couldn't leave Narcissa alone with you when I went to school! Walburga was more of a mother to us than you were!"
"Well, I hardly intended to hurt you, Andromeda!" Druella huffed. "You knew you were my favourite child. How was I supposed to know that you felt...what? neglected? unloved? Why didn't you say something at the time?"
"Why didn't I say anything? You mean aside from the fact that you made it seem unreasonable to care about such trivial matters as feelings? I didn't want you to pretend to love me! If I had said something and you actually listened and made some effort to communicate that you weren't just saying I was your favourite to annoy Bellatrix, I would never have been able to trust that you weren't just giving me a hug now and again because I'd asked you to act like you cared! Would it have killed you to look at Walburga, or Uncle Felix and Aunt Claudia, or your own parents, or even the bloody house elves and think oh, that's how normal people express affection, maybe I should do that?"
"Obviously not. Equally obviously, it simply didn't occur to me that I should make some effort to express affection for you."
Danny didn't know whether it was that latent legilimency thing finally kicking in, or if this was just the obvious next step in this trainwreck of a family reunion — seriously, he now completely understood why Mum hadn't talked to Druella since she ran away from the Blacks, even though she was friends with Mira and at least capable of holding a civil business conversation with Narcissa — but he definitely knew a split second before the words left her lips that the next thing out of his mother's mouth would be, "Did you feel any affection for me? For any of us?"
"You don't want me to answer that question, Andromeda."
"So, no, then." Mum's voice was hard, frigid, her face an impassive mask.
"No," Druella let the single word sit heavy between them for the space of a heartbeat or two, tears beginning to well in Mother's eyes despite her very obvious attempts to control herself, before adding, "It wasn't your fault, Andromeda. I found you fairly tolerable, actually, but I spent the majority of your childhood deeply depressed. Living at Ancient House, under the Black wards, surrounded by that much darkness and the echoes of a thousand years of pain and suffering, was absolutely miserable. Every time I looked at you or Bellatrix, I was reminded of being pregnant, the entire process of which was horrifying. I suspect Bella spent the first few years after she learned how to escape the Nursery intentionally aggravating me, just to hear me scream. I daresay I spent more nights crying myself to sleep than you did.
"I didn't hate you like I did Bella, but being forced to interact with you when I could barely haul myself out of bed most days was work. Being around you wasn't a thing I enjoyed, it was a thing I had to do because Arcturus ordered me to educate you. I know you were trying. I knew it at the time and I tried not to hold it against you that you were a child and not yet fully developed, but having to suffer imperfection grates, all the more so when I'm already miserable, and knowing how to fix that, but not being able to communicate it or get you to just do everything correctly frustrated me to the point of tears. Yes, I knew you weren't intentionally performing badly just to hurt me like some daughters I could name, I shouldn't take it personally that you were trying your best and simply weren't perfect — I even knew that it was unreasonable to expect perfection from you — but that didn't make it less painful.
"Even if I hadn't been completely miserable, I was never emotionally qualified to raise a child. I am not a nurturing person, Andromeda. I knew that — everyone knew that! I didn't want children, I was socially and contractually obligated to produce you. I was assured that the elves would take care of all the squishy, emotional parts of raising you, and I wouldn't have to deal with you until you were capable of rational thought.
"So, no. I didn't feel affection for you when you were a child. When I felt anything related to you, it was most often resentment directed at the House of Black, or horror and revulsion at recalling the trauma of physical reproduction, or frustration and irritation at being forced to suffer your childish attempts at whatever I was supposed to be teaching you. But you were as much a prisoner in that House as I was. I had no intention of hurting you. If I had realised you needed me to, I would have made an effort to pretend to care, as you put it."
"So, no, and let's all feel sorry for Druella," Mum sneered.
Her mother shrugged, apparently unbothered to be called out for basically just trying to one-up Mum feeling hurt by her not caring about her as a kid. "I did tell you that you didn't want me to answer the question."
"And you wonder why I think it's a terrible idea for Harry to stay with you over the summer?"
"No, I'm quite aware that you think that I'm impossibly demanding and entirely unsympathetic to anyone else's struggles, and that since Harry hasn't made the Choice and therefore, unlike Bellatrix, is capable of feeling negative emotions, I'm going to traumatise the poor boy. Which is, quite frankly, an absurd concern. Bellatrix didn't attempt to meet the expectations I set for her simply because she was incapable of feeling shame or guilt when she failed to do so. Even before she made her dedication, she saw them as a challenge. A clearly defined goal to aim for. The concept of you'll never improve if you only fight opponents you can already beat, applied to life outside the duelling circle. I do have every intention of asking Harry to work harder than he has ever done in his life while he stays with me, but I fully anticipate that he will enjoy doing so."
Harry nodded. "I know studying literally all day isn't reasonable by normal people standards, Andi. I wouldn't expect...really anyone else to be able to keep up that sort of pace, let alone want to. For me it sounds like... That was pretty much what I did when I was living in Charing by myself, you know, learning spells and studying Magical British culture twenty hours a day, but I was just studying whatever seemed cool. I didn't even know where to start to get better at magic, or what was most important, or anything. I think I told Dumbledore the first time I talked to him that getting a private tutor would probably be better for me than staying at Hogwarts because I could work at my pace instead of, I don't know, Greg Goyle's. I want to actually learn things, not just...sit around being bored out of my mind in lessons. If Dru wants to teach me, that's great, actually. Way better than spending all summer by myself."
"You don't have to spend all summer by yourself," Mum interrupted. "You could stay with us, or I'm sure Mira and Blaise would love to have you. You're allowed to take a break, Harry."
But Harry shook his head. "You don't get it. I don't want to take a break! Not like you mean, anyway. I'd love to have a break from the unrelenting boredom of Hogwarts. Spending half the day at a duelling gym and the rest reading and talking about history and magical theory and stuff with someone who knows more than me and not being bored or having to slow down or take a break and go do something 'fun' is exactly what I would do if I could do anything over the summer.
"I don't care how hard it is or if I have to actually work to meet Dru's standards. I want to do something that's not easy, okay? I can't even explain how much I want to... How much I want to have to try at something — something I'm good at, not something I'm never going to be able to do, like pretending to be a normal, non-freakish person. Something I can actually do and get better at."
"You seem to be under the impression that it's actually possible to meet Druella's standards. It's not. If you do, she'll raise her expectations. There is a difference between seeking a challenge to push your limits, and undertaking an impossible task such as pleasing my mother."
"You seem to be under the impression that me wanting to catch up on everything I've missed over the past ten years has anything to do with Dru," Harry shot back. "And of course I don't want to disappoint her, especially since I need her help to kill Riddle, but I didn't agree to spend the summer with her for her, like because I want to impress her or something. I did it because I literally can't imagine a better way to spend the summer, period. And Dumbledore agreed she can be my guardian now, so your opinion is irrelevant."
Mum looked from Harry, stubbornly pouting at her, to Druella, with her smug little smile, and muttered under her breath, "Oh for the love of the Dark!" Then, slightly louder, "Fine, I'll wait and say 'I told you so' in September. But expecting an eleven-year-old to kill a bloody Dark Lord is an entirely different level of unreasonable expectations, Mother!"
"Both Harry and the Dark seem to believe him capable of it. One would think you would have realised at some point in your childhood that one underestimates Bella at one's own peril."
Mum positively glowered at her own mother. "Harry is not Bellatrix, Mother! Is that why you're volunteering yourself as his guardian? Because you see him as a blank slate uncorrupted by the influence of the House of Black and another chance to get it right with her?"
"That may be a contributing factor, yes," the blonde witch admitted. Harry didn't seem to mind, which struck Danny as a little weird. He was pretty sure he would, if someone told him they only wanted anything to do with him because they saw him as his parents reincarnated. "As is the fact that Bella could be shockingly perceptive at times. She instructed Mira that I was to raise him if Narcissa couldn't, presumably because the only real issues she had with me as a child were due to my relationship with you. She found me frustrating, certainly, but constantly being challenged to do better pushed her to reach a level of competency well beyond the commonly accepted range of human ability."
Mum positively scowled at her. "Oh, yes. I'm sure that has nothing to do with neither of you actually being entirely human!"
"Is that really so upsetting to learn?" Danny wasn't certain, but he thought Druella might be legitimately confused about that. He thought it was perfectly obvious that anyone who'd spent their entire childhood trying to live up to someone else's abilities and expectations might be a little upset to learn that it had never even been possible for them to reach them. Like being lied to, sort of. Even if Druella hadn't known, it still seemed reasonable to him that Mum would be upset. It seemed un-reasonable that Druella wasn't upset, actually, since hadn't she said she just found out a couple of hours ago?
Mum hesitated. "No, you know what? No, it's not. It actually makes me feel much better about never reaching a level of competency well beyond the commonly accepted range of human ability."
"Don't be so melodramatic, Andromeda. There were plenty of arenas where you excelled well beyond Bella."
"Yes, social and political arenas, which you don't care about and never have."
"That's not true. When I was with the Blacks I valued social and political skills far more highly than—"
"Caring about something because it's your duty to do so is not the same as actually caring for it in and of itself, Mother! This is exactly why I didn't tell you that I wanted you to express some affection for me as a child!"
Druella gave an exasperated little huff. "Well, fine, if you're so determined to believe that I never cared about you or your talents, go ahead! It doesn't matter to me, I'm not even here to speak to you." Tears welled in Mum's eyes again. She blinked hard to keep them from falling, which Danny was certain Druella noticed, but she pretended not to. "Danny?"
"What?" Danny spat, glaring at the blonde bitch.
She raised an eyebrow at his tone, as if to say, how petulant. "Do you want to make your debut as Harry Potter after the matter of Thom's persistence on this plane is resolved, or would you prefer to wait?"
"No," he said, as coldly as he possibly could. "I don't want to be Harry Potter." If he had his way, he would never announce that he was born Harry Potter. The Potter estate could...do whatever Noble Houses did when they died out, he didn't care. It wasn't like it meant anything to him. The Potters weren't even real people to him! The only reason they mattered at all was they weren't Bellatrix. He was Danny Tonks, son of Ted and Andi Tonks — not adopted son, Dad always said he was their kid every bit as much as Dora, it didn't matter that Mum didn't give birth to him, they loved him the same, he was their son. He didn't even know who "Harry Potter" was. A character in a bunch of shite kids books, he didn't really even exist! Why would Danny ever want to give up his family for– what? Fame? Money? A seat in the bloody Wizengamot? He didn't want any of that shite!
Druella nodded. "Very well. I will inform Albus that he is to keep your birth identity to himself and you, Andromeda, can go back to ignoring my existence."
"I ignore your existence?! Oh, that's rich, Mother!"
"We've already covered this, Andromeda! I know I was a terrible parent when you were small! You've already dismissed my explanations as excuses, so I'm really not sure what more there is to say!"
"Not then! The past twenty years! You haven't so much as written me a Midsummer greeting card!"
"You were the one who ran away, Andromeda!" Druella snapped, emotion (other than patronising or baffled by Mum being a normal person with normal feelings she'd been ignoring for Mum's entire life) creeping into her voice for the first time since she'd arrived. Not hurt, like Mum obviously was, but annoyed, like Mum was being irrational and this was all a moderately bothersome waste of time when she could be doing something more interesting. (Danny could see why Draco insisted she was a bloody construct or something. She reminded him of Narcissa, but colder...) "You were the one who cut off all ties with me as well as with the Blacks! I took that as a fairly obvious indication that you wanted nothing more to do with me, and I have no interest in pressing my company upon those who obviously wish to avoid me."
"I cut off ties with you?! You were the one who never so much as acknowledged my letter!"
"What on Earth are you talking about? The last letter I received from you was in the spring of Nineteen Seventy-One, begging me to intercede on your behalf and convince Arcturus not to marry you off to that Parkinson oaf. I specifically recall responding that I sympathised with your plight, but that there was nothing I could do. I was no longer a Black, and even if I were, Arcturus was hardly likely to have listened to me."
A look of uncertainty replaced Mum's fury. "The last letter I sent thanked you for advising me that I must do my duty as a daughter of the House of Black, noted that if I weren't a daughter of the House of Black I would have no duty to attend to, and informed you that I was therefore exiling myself from the House. It included a forwarding address..."
Druella froze for a full three seconds, just staring at Mum, then sighed. "Well, in that case I suppose I'll put you on my greeting card list."
Harry giggled, breaking the awkward silence which followed her bland statement. Mum didn't seem to be able to decide whether she was still upset or not, and Druella might as well have had ice water in her veins, for all the emotion she showed. (That was probably the thing that was making Danny hate her the most, that she was making Mum so upset, and she didn't even care.) When Mum turned to give him an incredulous that was so very inappropriate look, he just shrugged. "What? That was supposed to be funny, right?"
"No, Harry, Druella doesn't have a sense of humour. She has every intention of pretending that we haven't spent the last twenty years hating each other because a bloody owl went astray, and legitimately considers discovering that we've been estranged for the past two decades over a bloody misunderstanding to be so inconsequential as not to warrant comment."
"Well, I didn't think she wasn't going to do it, just saying it like that was funny," Harry said defensively, only to be ignored by both of them.
"I never hated you, Andromeda. It's somewhat mollifying to know that you didn't simply choose to abandon me, but I didn't resent you for doing so when I thought you had. I understand that you hold me equally responsible for the horrors you suffered as a child as any other adult in that thrice-cursed House at the time. And—"
"You were responsible, Mother! If you truly didn't notice anything amiss in our household, it can only possibly be because you were actively avoiding noticing anything going on around you!"
Druella sighed. "Honestly, Andromeda. I never said that I wasn't responsible or that you don't have every right to hate me for failing you as a child. That would be why I didn't resent you cutting ties with me as well as the Blacks. If you had intentionally cut me out of your life, I would undoubtedly have deserved it. And I've no idea what more you expect me to say about your stray owl. Even if I were to have received it, I sincerely doubt that either of our lives would be significantly different today beyond sending regular solstice cards. I suppose I would have written to congratulate you on seizing your independence and assure you that Bella decided to pretend you never existed, rather than hunt you down and kill you for leaving, which might have had some impact on your life whilst you were off in the Americas, but given our freedom we clearly move in very different circles, so..."
"You– You would have congratulated me? Mother, I've spent the past twenty years thinking you were so appalled by my rejection of Society that you wouldn't deign to acknowledge my existence!"
"Which is rather odd, given that I know Mira has to have told you that I abandoned Society myself at the earliest opportunity. She makes a point of keeping me up to date on your life. I do have to wonder what makes you think I wouldn't have run away to avoid a political marriage if I'd had anywhere else to go."
"What? Oh, I don't know, perhaps every previous interaction we've ever had? Every lesson wherein I was taught that I was a lady of the House of Black before anything else? The fact that you didn't run away, maybe?!"
Druella scoffed. "I was sixteen when I was betrothed to Cygnus. Other than a single disastrous term at Beauxbatons, I had never spent any significant time anywhere other than my parents' home. I had no idea how to function out in the world, no marketable skills or friends to help me, let alone a lover I preferred over Cygnus. I had attempted to run away to the University years before, but they rejected my application on the grounds that I was too young to properly enrol. Realistically, my only options were to allow myself to be betrothed to Cygnus and move to one of the Black properties, or attempt to avoid being married off to one of the few other Houses which would have me until I came of age and could apply to the University properly, while continuing to live with Elladora's increasingly obvious efforts to drive me to suicide in the meanwhile.
"Given that my reputation at the age of sixteen was rather like Bella's — magically gifted, highly accomplished, but barely socially competent and obviously mentally unstable, albeit in a less terrifying way than Bellatrix — but without the lure of a generous dowry to convince prospective marriage partners to overlook the latter points, it was highly unlikely that I would receive any better offers. Uncle Luc had no intention of allowing me to set up my own household — admittedly with good reason — and I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to survive another year living with my mother, so I consented to the marriage contract — in spite of the fact that doing so required me to embrace the role of Lady Druella, not because of it. Which I could have sworn you were aware of. You just acknowledged that you know I never cared about Society or politics in and of themselves.
"Of course I would have congratulated you for managing to extricate yourself from that tedious nonsense. And that Parkinson boy was an idiot. There is something to be said for a man stupid enough to be easily manipulated, with a manor large enough you never need to see him, but if you'd gone through with marrying him, your children probably would have been even more disappointing than Draco."
Danny let out a snort of startled laughter, which made all three of the others turn to him. "Er."
"Dismissive mockery of one's children and grandchildren does not become acceptable simply because you don't like your cousin either, Danny," Mum chided him, before adding, "And making it clear to your children and grandchildren that you favour some of them over others is cruel, Mother."
Druella raised an eyebrow at her. "Crueler than allowing Narcissa's spoilt little brat to form a false impression of his own abilities and intelligence based on his mother's unconditional praise and little else? She really has done a terrible job raising him."
"Yes, Mother! Merlin and Morgen, I hope you haven't said as much to Narcissa..."
"I've expressed my concerns about his future and that of the House of Malfoy, yes. She made a very indelicate suggestion about what I ought to do with said concerns, in the form of an awdl gywydd, because apparently she never realised that it's not crude language if it's poetry was not a legitimate addendum to ladies do not use crude language in addressing their peers."
Mum seemed to be trying very hard not to smile. "I'm surprised she didn't use the wards to expel you from the Manor."
"I'm sure she would have, had I not taken my leave to avoid laughing at her ire. I realise you think I have no sense of humour, but one's primest, most proper child accusing one of having all the sensibility and compassion of a wine-drunk wasp, in verse, with no acknowledgment of the absurdity of such a scene, is genuinely hilarious. It's even more amusing now that she's an adult and presumably aware that no one else engages in flyting in this day and age than it was when she and Sirius were children practising their profanities on each other."
Mum lost the battle against a slightly nostalgic smirk. "I'd forgotten they used to do that."
"Yes, that was probably the most creative of their linguistic practice exercises. Certainly the most entertaining."
The nostalgic smirk vanished. "I should have known any fun we were allowed to have as children was specifically calculated manipulation on your part."
"Mmm, that one was Bella's idea, actually."
"Bella's," Mum echoed disbelievingly.
Druella nodded. "She was even subtle enough to suggest it in such a way as to convince them they were getting away with something terribly subversive, finding an excuse to engage in such 'shocking' rudeness in front of myself and Walburga which wasn't technically punishable. My only manipulative contribution to the exercise was pretending that it wasn't positively hilarious hearing Sirius call Thom a fish-faced snake-fucker in Welsh."
Harry snorted trying not to laugh. Danny was having some trouble not doing the same, imagining an eight-year-old Sirius Black insulting the Dark Lord to his face. Even Mum was wearing another reluctant smile.
"Now, if there is nothing more important to discuss than the rare pleasant memory from the years we spent trapped in that awful House, Harry and I really must be going."
"Going?" Harry repeated. "Where are we going?"
Christmas at Malfoy Manor was always a splendid affair. Draco greatly preferred his Father's traditions, going back to pre-Statute Continental celebrations of the Christian holiday, but transformed over the years to celebrate the turning of the year and the return of longer days, over his Mother's Yule ritual.
The whole house was decked out in glittering lights and unmelting ice and freshly gathered winter greenery. There were gifts and delicate, elaborate fancies for every meal. There was a small, intimate party in the evening, just the Family and their closest allies and clients. Mother played the piano. Draco got to dress up and play host for Pansy and the rest of their set, like they were adults at the Festa Morgana. Father spent the whole day at home. Sometimes both of his parents would take him sleighing. They'd let him drive the phaetheons last year (for a few minutes, with Mother holding the reins behind him, just in case).
It was extremely unusual for guests to drop by unannounced.
It was even more unusual for Grandmother to drop by unannounced, but that had nothing to do with the holiday. Mother had had a falling out with her several years ago. They still corresponded by owl, but Grandmother hadn't visited since Draco was nine.
Father seemed even more taken by surprise than Draco when Mother led her — and Potter, which was also weird, that Potter would be with Grandmother, but he was always doing weird things, so that was less unexpected — into the sitting room. He looked up from his book positively appalled. "Gods and Powers... Cissa, did we somehow wake up in Nineteen Sixty this morning?"
"Happy Christmas to you, too, Lucius," Grandmother drawled, as though he was joking. Which, obviously he didn't think it was really Nineteen Sixty, but Draco didn't get the joke. "Draco."
"Grandmother."
She ignored him, but that was really just as well. "And I do realise the resemblance is striking, but if you look closely, you'll notice his eyes are the wrong colour. This is Harry Potter. Harry, Lucius, Lord of the Noble House of Malfoy. Generally he's polite enough to offer greetings other than facetious remarks on one's appearance."
"What? Yes, Happy Christmas, Dru. But... Harry Potter? You must be joking."
"No, as I've just explained to Narcissa, Albus Dumbledore likes to think himself clever. Mira and Andromeda didn't bother drawing attention to his little deception for reasons as yet insufficiently explained."
"I'm not sure there needs to be an explanation beyond the entertainment value of watching Dumbledore embarrass himself in a few years," Potter offered. "Well met, Lord Malfoy. Hey Draco. Happy Christmas."
Draco glowered at him for his familiarity, but it would be somewhat unwieldy for Potter to call him 'Malfoy' when there were multiple Malfoys in the room. Fine. "Happy Christmas, Po— Harry. How's Dumbledore embarrassing himself?"
"Oh, well, can you keep a secret?" he asked, all teasing and condescending.
"Of course I can keep a secret, Potter!"
"I'm not really Harry Potter or Harry Harrison. I'm just pretending to be him because Dumbledore switched me with the real Harry Potter as a baby, and now I'm bait for a mostly-dead Dark Lord. And I was pretending to be her because when you assume, you make an ass out of you and Weasley. I'm really your cousin, James Black. Hi."
"What?!"
"Technically, Sirius Black is my father. Sire, I guess. I'm told there's a family resemblance."
"Oh, gods and Powers, she didn't really use him for male blood, did she?" Mother protested.
"Of course she did, who else would she use?" Grandmother said, in a stop being thick tone. "Thom sacrificed his ability to sire children, and even if he hadn't, she would have had to analyse and reverse everything else he did to his blood over the decades to isolate his original human chromosomes. Sirius, on the other hand, was conveniently human and nearly identical to her anyway."
"Am I missing something?" Draco asked suspiciously. "Who are we talking about?"
"Your Aunt Bella, Draco. She used blood alchemy to produce a child, Eridanus, who was taken from us at the end of the war. And apparently raised as Harry Potter, because—"
"The original Harry Potter would like to keep his current identity private until he comes of age, Narcissa," Grandmother said firmly, cutting her off. "It is politically simpler for multiple reasons if the original Eridanus Black never reappears in Britain. To facilitate the switch back and ensure there is no confusion regarding the Black inheritance, we will be presenting Harry as James Black, Sirius's bastard son, most likely at some point next year. Draco, you will keep your knowledge of the James Black identity to yourself until it becomes public knowledge, and your knowledge of the Eridanus Black identity to yourself indefinitely. If you doubt your ability to do so, I will have to obliviate you."
"Mother!"
"I can keep it a secret! I swear!" Draco said quickly. He didn't doubt that Grandmother would obliviate him if she thought he couldn't.
"Good. Narcissa, I expect you to aid Mirabella in ensuring that anyone who might question whatever fate Dumbledore invents for Eridanus to have suffered off-stage comes to the understanding that James Black is a convenient fiction and similarly keeps their peace."
"Well, yes, of course I will, but— When did you say this was going to come out?"
"That depends entirely on how long it takes to deal with what remains of Thom de Mort. The public explanation for the ending of the ruse is that James came to Hogwarts disguised as Harry in an effort to lure him out of hiding, returning to his 'true' identity after that role is no longer required of him. We may also wait until Albus arranges a trial for Sirius to clear his name of any accusations of betraying the Potters, if the timing is convenient."
"Who, exactly, will be dealing with the Dark Lord? And how?" Father asked, somewhat hesitantly. "You know he took...precautions..."
"I do, yes. Which is both why and how I will be dealing with him. With Harry's assistance. The task was assigned to him, after all."
"Assigned? Who the heck assigned you to kill the Dark Lord?" Draco asked Potter, trying not to sound too incredulous. He didn't really not believe it, Grandmother wouldn't joke about something like that (or anything, really...), but...
"That's classified."
"The line is that would be telling, Harry," Grandmother corrected him, sounding almost amused, though if she actually was, there was no hint of it on her face. "In any case, we spent rather longer than I intended speaking to Albus, and I don't wish to intrude overly-much on your family holiday, but I thought it best to take the horcrux into custody at the earliest opportunity," Grandmother said, turning to Father.
"Horcrux?" Mother repeated, turning to face him as well.
"What on Earth are you talking about Druella?"
Grandmother smirked at him. "You are one of the best liars I've ever met, Lucius, but Thom wasn't an idiot, and he didn't intend to leave his primary horcrux so poorly guarded that someone might stumble upon it by chance, then possess them and allow the horcrux to re-embody itself. He intended his followers to re-embody him directly, and if that failed, to embody the horcrux, which he could then subsume, taking the new body for himself.
"Out of all of his lieutenants, Lucius, you were the most likely to escape any consequences for the role you played in the war — obviously I was no longer in contact with him by the end, but I can almost certainly assure you that he was aware of your efforts to build an escape route for yourself and your family, Narcissa. The fact that he allowed you to do so without interfering or even acknowledging your disloyalty and lack of confidence argues that he entrusted the primary horcrux to your husband so that it would be preserved in the event that everything went wrong.
"I realise he likely used deep compulsions to encourage you to deny any such thing, as well as to carry out the plan to re-embody him after a certain period of time, but they would have to be sufficiently subtle that you would not recognise them yourself and therefore relatively weak. Now that your attention has been drawn to them, I suspect you will be more than capable of resisting them long enough to give me the horcrux, Lucius."
Father turned on his heel and marched out of the room as though in a trance, followed by Mother, and then everyone else. They paraded down the corridor to his study, where he unlocked a drawer in his desk to reveal a cheap-looking diary, bound in black leather. He picked it up and turned back toward the rest of them, but then stopped, as though he'd forgotten what he was doing or something. Grandmother crossed the room and took it from his hand, clicking her tongue impatiently.
The moment his fingers left the leather, he seemed to come back to himself, hands rising to his temples with a pained hiss. "Mother of Magic, Druella! Since when are you a legilimens?"
"I'm not a legilimens. Thom taught me to do legilimency in Fifty-Nine, but I can only get into a mind if an actual legilimens gives me the key, so to speak. Only a handful of minds Thom gave me access to survived the war — yours just happens to be one of them."
"Oh, right. Of course," Father said sarcastically. Then, much more seriously, "Well. I suppose thanks are in order."
Grandmother rolled her eyes. "Think nothing of it, Lucius."
"Am I one of them?" Mother asked over her.
"That would be telling."
"So, yes."
"Please don't get inexplicably stroppy over this. I've already met my bafflingly emotional encounter quota for the day."
"Oh, don't worry, Mother, I won't be stroppy, I'll be annoyed, and how the hell is that inexplicable? Can't you just legilimise me?!"
"I would, but you would certainly notice — it's hardly as though your mind has remained unchanged since you were ten. And getting caught legilimising someone without their permission is very rude. I would never."
Potter giggled, though no one else was amused.
"Mother?"
"Yes, Narcissa?"
"Take that fucking horcrux and get out of my house."
"Very well. Happy holidays, Lucius. Draco. Narcissa, I'm sure Mira will keep you apprised of the situation with Thom and James's social debut. Come, Harry," she demanded, holding out a hand to side-along him away.
Potter frowned at her hand. "Apparation was uncomfortable. Can't we go through the Void again?"
"No, the Lady of the House has asked us to leave. Spending ten minutes casting gate spells for our own comfort and convenience when we could leave immediately would be extremely insulting."
Potter sighed. "Yes, Ma'am. Happy holidays, Lord and Lady Malfoy, Draco."
"Er... Happy holidays?" Draco echoed, slightly too slowly, as Grandmother apparated out as soon as Potter took her hand. "What did he mean go through the Void?" he asked no one in particular.
"Almost certainly that my mother has devised some new method of transportation that she considers perfectly reasonable and preferable to conventional travel spells for whatever reason, and sane people consider conceptually terrifying."
"And probably impossible," Father added. "Cissa...I'm sorry. I should have—"
"Don't be ridiculous, Lucius. De Mort was positively insidious. I certainly don't hold you accountable for failing to tell me about that little gambit, given whatever he did to ensure you would fulfil his plan. Now, if either of you would care to go flying, I, for one, could certainly use some fresh air."
"Ooh! Me! Can I drive again? Please?" Draco begged, trying not to sound like he was begging.
Mother laughed. "I suppose, yes."
"Yes!"
So, that's it for this one for now. Tomorrow we'll have a chapter of the Plan and Monday will be the first chapter of the one where Dru goes to Hogwarts, ie, the Fic I Still Don't Have A Name For.